IIST 499W Blog

The next big thing:

2007-03-22T19:13:00.000-07:00

The next big thing:

Week of March 19, 2007

2007-03-19T09:35:00.000-07:00

The "Web 2.0" catchphrase is beginning to have a large abundance in political campaigns, due to the upcoming elections in 2008. In the article "Internet Plays Widening Role in Race for President", Amy Schatz unveils how political messages are being imposed via web technology.

Two main pieces of evidence have been shown to support this claim: The web site hit rate for both Clinton and Obama is a relatively large number, and candidates are using social networking tools in order to spread their messages (Schatz, 2007). The article shows overwhelming support for the democrats in comparison to the republicans, but I believe it is somewhat biased. It tries to show the huge contrast between the republicans and the democrats, but it does not call enough attention to the fact that the internet has a lesser effect on the more technologically inept generations. The republicans tend to reside in the older crowd, which would obviously yield a lesser turnout on the net. At first glance, the article is very deceptive in regards to who is actually winning. I think that first glances mean a lot more than they're credited for, so this might not be the way to go about writing an article.

The other interesting part of the article focuses on the utilization of MySpace as a campaigning tool. Again, this has the same problem as the hits statistic, but it does show that "Web 2.0" is having a lot of impact on our culture. Currently, Barack Obama has the most friends on MySpace, which would show overwhelming support from the younger crowd (Schatz, 2007). If other candidates used more MySpace "glitter", they could be more competitive with Obama on this front.

Since I'm already on the topic of political importance, I pose the following question: Would a newspaper go out of business if it didn't give any mention to George Bush and his stance on freedom of speech? The New York Times seems to believe that they would be ruined if they did not. The olympic torch passed through Juneau, Alaska before the beginning of the 2002 games in Salt Lake City. A group of students decided that it would be funny and attention-granting to hold up a sign that said "Bong Hits 4 Jesus", which resulted in a school supervisor tearing up the sign. Apparently, Bush is siding with the supervisor despite the fact that a christian religious symbol was depicted on the sign (Greenhouse, 2007). Bush is well known for advocating the religious right and destroying freedom of speech rights. Apparently, his heart beats more for the cause of limiting freedom of speech than the love of jesus. The difficulty of this situation is going to bring a lot of attention to the supreme court, where the legitimacy of the situation will be argued out more. How fun.

All of the aforementioned political drivel is making me feel ill. I'll cleanse the palette with another topic.

Schatz, Amy (2007, March 19). Internet Plays Widening Role in Race for President. The Wall Street Journal, p. A6.
Greenhouse, Linda (2007, March 18). Free-speech Case Divides Bush and Religious Right. The New York Times, p. N22.

Week of March 5, 2007

2007-03-05T10:01:00.000-08:00

A columnist in The Wall Street Journal had a very interesting interview with two corporate criminals last week. In "My Lunch With 2 Fraudsters: Food for Thought for Investors", Herb Greenberg has a discussion to determine how investors can protect themselves from corporate fraud. The most interesting part is that the advice comes from the mouths of those who stole. The situation is very reminiscent of some of the ideas that were expressed in Plato's Republic: Those who know how to guard something well will also know the best way to steal it. Even though Socrates proved that this logic was flawed, the reversal of that phrase may yield some truth. Barry Minkow and Sam Antar discussed the natures of corporate crime and how to spot it. They felt that fraud is not always about greed; it can be related to ego, status, and arrogance. They also noted that putting skepticism into the picture can intimidate criminals, thereby suggesting that we shouldn't be afraid to ask questions regarding any incongruities (Greenberg, 2007).

Space travel has seemed to have become a forgotten idea over the past few years. Perhaps this is due to the ongoing struggles that the United States has faced on our planet. One person who has not forgotten the importance of discovering the mysteries of the universe is Steven Hawking, a brilliant but physically disabled professor. Hawking plans to take a ride on the "vomit comet", which is an airplane that simulates zero gravity. Despite his severe disability, he will take this ride for the experience and to prove a point: Space travel is important for everybody, not just those that are "equipped" to withstand it (Overbye, 2007). I believe that Hawking's message is a very powerful one - The earth may not be able to withstand mankind's turmoils for much longer, and we need to make use of our outer resources. In many cases, it is not considered proper to call attention to a person's disability, but I think this is a special case that should allow for a great deal of attention. Hopefully, the public will recognize this effort and consider the benefits of investing time and thought into space travel.

One factor that will play a role in choosing our next president is educational reform. In the editorial "A Critique of Pure Reason", David Brooks looks at what he feels are important issues that the United States faces in this category. Brooks makes the point that education is not limited to the formal schooling system, and that more focus should be brought upon the fact that children flourish in more nurturing environments. Parents need to know that a child's social and mental tendencies have some resemblance in how they are treated at home. The conundrum is how we can translate this into government policy (Brooks, 2007). For the most part, I agree with Brooks' assertion. Education seems to have a narrow focus, because so much unrecognized learning goes on outside of the academic institutions. However, I think that the institutions also have many flaws that need to be recognized. Brooks did not give much mention to this category, even though the formal system may be tantamount to the informal system (in terms of importance). It will be interesting to see how our candidates feel about this issue, although it may be overlooked due to the greater issues at hand.

Greenberg, Herb (2007, March 3). My Lunch With 2 Fraudsters: Food for Thought for Investors. The Wall Street Journal, p. B3.

Overbye, Dennis (2007, March 1). Stephen Hawking Plans Prelude to the Ride of His Life. The New York Times, p. A17.

Brooks, David (2007, March 1). A Critique of Pure Reason. The New York Times, p. A19.

Week of February 12, 2007

2007-02-12T09:14:00.000-08:00

In Saturday's issue of the Wall Street Journal, there was an article that exemplified intellectual property arguments at their finest. The article was pertaining to the new iPhone that has recently been released by Apple Incorporated. The problem is that Cisco Systems Inc. is claiming that Apple Inc. practiced copyright infringement during their construction of the iPhone. It appears that there was a Voice-over Internet Protocol (VOIP) aspect of the iPhone that Cisco had already developed for their new line of products (Wingfield, 2007). The interesting part of the settlement is that Cisco does not seem to be concerned about Apple's use of the technology, but they are concerned about interoperability. Even though no conclusion has been reached about who's right or wrong, I believe that Apple will be forced to have this capability. Outside of the boundaries of the law, Apple has made their products more compatible with more machines that are on the market. For example, Apple recently switched their processing architecture from PPC to x86, which allows for Microsoft Windows to be installed on their machines. It seems like this would be a win-win situation for both parties, because each would lose customers due to the lack of interoperability. Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple Inc.) seems to be inclined to agree with making his proprietary formats less proprietary as of lately.

An article in "The Public Editor" of the New York Times revealed some of the statistical inaccuracies that can be used in order to sway opinion. Recently, there was another article that tried to show that more women are living without a spouse. However, this apparently included girls that are still in high school. The problem here is that most girls can not marry at such a young age, which warped the statistic. The writer noted that this may have been more pertinent a century ago when women were able to marry at such a young age (Calame, 2007). My feeling is that this may have been done on purpose, rather than neglecting to draw the proper conclusion from the data. Here are my reasons:

1). Since when has a 15 year old qualified as being a full-fledged woman?

It should have jumped right out at the writer when he initially wrote the article. If it didn't, then I'm led to assume that this person has some serious mental issues.

2). The writer verified that the data was included, but said that the difference was negligible (Calame, 2007).

Despite the fact that it's only a four percent difference, the number would change from 51 to 47 percent when removing the 15-17 year old age group. Perhaps the difference seems small, but it is large in respect to the female American population.

The author could have proven a valid point, but I think that he purposely drew a false conclusion from data in order to exaggerate his point. It would be interesting to see how often this is done in statistics, because our opinions can be swayed because of them. The lesson learned is that you can't always trust the numbers.

One of the most interesting battles to watch right now is the competition between companies that manufacture LCD TVs. The company Syntax-Brillian, maker of Olevia brand televisions, sold their televisions below cost during the holiday season. They coupled this with an advertising campaign, which generated more interest among the brand. The result is more competition among the flat-panel market, and Olevia having a reputable name (Darlin, 2007). It’s interesting to see how a company that isn’t turning a profit can be deceptive in their goals. The long run outcome of this will be a bigger name and more profits.

Works Cited

Wingfield, N. With iPhone Release Fast Approaching, Apple and
Cisco Near Dispute Settlement. (2007, February 10).
The Wall Street Journal, p. A2.

Calame, Byron (2007, February 11). Can a 15-Year-Old Be a . The
New York Times, Section 4 p. 13.

Darlin, Damon (2007, February 12). The No-Name Brand Behind the Latest Flat-Panel Price Wart. The New York Times, p. C1.

Week of February 5th, 2007

2007-02-05T10:15:00.000-08:00

Recently, there have been some extremely important discussions about global warming and the adverse effects that we're implementing against the earth. Scientists basically revealed (with relatively substantial proof) that humans are one of the leading causes in the climatic changes that have been happening for the past century (Rosenthal, 2007). Consequently, we're going to have to deal with increasingly severe weather and the melting of the polar ice caps. Issues such as this make me feel guilty to be destroying the earth. It brings consumption into ethical realms and makes you realize that using too many polluting resources might be inherently wrong. By the same token, there's not an incredible amount that we can do at a personal level. Society itself needs to have a paradigm shift on the entire issue. Hopefully these new conclusions will yield more awareness to our problem.

Especially in today's world, it seems to be increasingly uncommon that cutbacks are practiced on the executive level members of a given corporation. American Express Co. is a company that is putting this into practice in order to give into the shareholder's requests. Apparently, the company was not factoring in the benefits packages as part of the overall equation (Sidel, 2007). At least to me, it seems that this kind of thinking would allow for the redistribution of wealth, which is an odd move for many large companies. Most executives seem to be aroused by their large salaries.

And last (but definitely not least) we have the issue of DNA sampling. A new law has been passed so that DNA samples can be taken from criminals and illegal immigrants. The functionalist perspective on this is that we are able to collect more information on people who commit sexual crimes, and also information on criminals who cross across borders (Preston, 2007). However, this brings other issues to the table. We've briefly discussed the whole issue of privacy and the violations brought about by the patriot act. This is somewhat similar in nature, because it allows the government to keep more of an eye on us. However, I don't think that this is as serious as tapping into phone conversations, internet, and shopping habits. This looks to be a legitimate way of helping track crime. I doubt that the government will violate our privacy by using this method, unless they highly suspect that we're up to no good.

Rosenthal , E. & Revkin, A. Science Panel Says Global Warming is 'Uneqivocal'. (2007, February 3). The New York Times, p. A1.
Sidel, Robin (2007, January 28). Top Executives at American Express Will See Retirement Benefits Shrink. The Wall Street Journal, p. B3.
Preston, Julia. U.S. Set to Begin A Vast Expansion of DNA Sampling. (2007, February 5). The New York Times, p. A1.

Week of January 29th, 2007

2007-01-29T11:40:00.000-08:00

In the article "How match.com Found Love Among Boomers", Sara Silver uncovers a great example of how the older generations are utilizing information on the internet. It shows that the information age may be able to touch more groups than what is precedented by our culture. Obviously, the younger and more "mainstream" members of the United States have become acclimated to the internet phenomenon that has been occurring over the past few decades. This might cause the older generation to feel left out of one of our largest resources. A salient challenge with implementing a site for an older demographic seems to be the development of the ease of use and accessibility. Apparently, other dating sites neglect to concentrate on older, divorced, or experienced couples (Silver, 2007). It seems as though match.com has an edge that myspace and other sites cannot compete with, but a new plan for conceiving competition might be on the horizon.

The second article I looked at was "Power Producers Look to Secure Nuclear Strikes" by Rebecca Smith. Much debate has been stirred up in relation to whether or not it is logical for the United States to use nuclear power as a substitute to utilizing the oil industry. Many of the reactors will be base in the southern parts of the United States, and the government is supporting this issue heavily by giving tax subsidies to pioneers of the industry (Smith, 2007). The debates that are going to evolve out of this are likely to attack the idea from an ethical perspective. The main entity for analysis will be whether or not it is right to value the monetary/energy efficiency or the safety of the environment. Because of the tax incentives, we're pretty aware of which way the government is leaning. Bush identified nuclear power as being a way to circumvent terrorism by not putting all of our marbles into one basket. It is still important to wonder whether or not it really eliminates catasrophe, because of all the threats it now imposes directly on our own soil.

Another eye-catching article was "Smaller Brands Hitch Ride With Coke Distributors" by Betsy McKay. It shows how much market power Coke and Pepsico have in the marketplace, because smaller brands cannot compete with the two "default" brands. Smaller companies, such as Honest Tea Inc., cannot keep up with the competition for shelf space that Coke and Pepsi are currently dominating. Consequently, the smaller brands are selling themselves out to the two major companies (McKay, 2007). It is startiling as to how much market control these two companies have in that category. We're all aware of the obnoxious soda commericals that are aired each day, and many of us probably hope to alleviate this annoyance. Unfortunately, it's mergers such as the one mentioned above that feed the fire. Perhaps the smaller companies should work together to form a company that can compete with the gigantic sugar-water superstars. If things continue to happen in this fashion, Coke and Pepsi will eventually own every liquid known to mankind.

Silver, Sara (2007, January 27). How match.com Found Love Among Boomers.The Wall Street Journal, p. A7.
Smith, Rebecca (2007, January 29). Power Producers Look to Secure Nuclear Strikes. The Wall Street Journal, p. A1.
McKay, Betsy (2007, January 29. Smaller Brands Hitch Ride With Coke Distributors. The Wall Street Journal, p. B1.